


an arrangement of brilliant golden lights

by freosan



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ardyn remains a dick, Fix-It, Multi, Post-Canon, Surprisingly Canon Compliant, a little bit fairy tale style but it doesn't last too long, implied OT5 if you squint, playing fast and loose with magical systems, slow burn if all goes according to plan, spoilers for everything probably, technically everybody's still pretty dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-01-26 19:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12564736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freosan/pseuds/freosan
Summary: Eos has changed dramatically since the Chosen King ascended to the throne. Dramatically enough that it's finding new prayers, and new ways to worship.Noctis wakes up first.As always, the rest follow after.





	1. Chapter 1

It starts slowly.

Noctis is first.

With no living king, there is nowhere in Lucis for magic to settle. Instead it whispers through the streets, without even the force of a spring breeze, searching for an outlet. Somewhere to rest itself.

"Praise the True King of Light," people say, in the days and weeks after the sun rises again. "Praise the King who died for us." "He brought the sun back." "He brought the dawn."

The words are undirected, unrefined, but they stir something. At each sunrise, the little ritual repeats; not every person, not every day, but enough.

 

* * *

 

Lunafreya was nearly a goddess already, in the minds of her people; perhaps one step away from pure divinity. There are icons of her, on mantels and in bedrooms, just weeks after she dies. When the magic is released, they remain images only until they cannot contain themselves any longer.

 

* * *

 

Ignis and Noctis go together in everyone’s memory. It's Cindy who first says it, while she's looking over another Astrals-forsaken list of repairs still left to do in Hammerhead, and a sadly much shorter list of people available to do the work.

"Ignis would know how to make this work."

Ignis's name is never far from her mind or her lips in those days, and soon she is not the only one who uses him as an example. Even after they've stopped asking aloud, each time they sit down to work, the unspoken thought remains: what would Ignis advise?

 

* * *

 

Ardyn's death was not enough to stop people from cursing his name.

 

* * *

 

Gladiolus takes more time, because there are only a few left to tell his stories. But Iris is still a hunter (though now it's meat and men she hunts instead of daemons) and as she teaches her apprentices, she tells them the stories that her brother told her during her training. 

Later, she tells them what her brother did while the world lay in ruins, and how he protected the True King and his memory. By then, her students have their own stories about him, gathering embellishments as they pass them around.

 

* * *

 

Prompto is the last, barely a glimmer for a long, long time, while Wiz doggedly gathers his few remaining chocobos and sets up breeding programs and wishes there were more people left in the world with the time to care about his birds. In the sixth clutch laid, there is one egg that's a little duller than the rest. Wiz thinks it might be dead, but the mother won't let him touch it, so he leaves it there and hopes she’s right, a little prayer running in the back of his mind: “someone must be lookin’ out for you.”

When the black chocobo runs away before she's a year old, Wiz isn't even surprised. But he's happy to watch her, and her descendants, run around on the edges of his farm. He even gives them names.

 

* * *

 

When Prompto finds himself, he is holding his camera, in a field of sunflowers, and the sun is pouring down on his head. That's shocking enough that he can think of nothing else for some time - he flops back into the sunflowers, which cushion his fall, and looks straight into the sun.

"Holy shit, buddy, you did it," he says aloud. Speaking hurts his throat.

Where is he? How long has he been here? Hours, at least, if the sun is so high in the sky. He sits up again, and looks around. He's so intent on trying to find landmarks that he doesn't notice there are no spots in his eyes from the sunlight.

He doesn't recognize this place, but that doesn't mean he's lost. With everything that happened in the final fight against Ardyn, anything could have happened to the land. Bahamut could have picked them all up and dropped half of Lucis in Tenebrae for all Prompto knows.

He picks a direction, sun warm at his back, and starts walking. He'll find a road, and then find civilization, and then beg, borrow, or steal a car and the gas to get to Insomnia. It's the only place he can imagine as a meetup point, right back where the four of them parted ways. It'll only be three of them who show, and the thought tangles him up in his emotions. They knew it was going to happen, knew what Noct had to do, and now they know that it worked.

Noct would say it was worth it, if he were still there. Prompto will reserve judgement on that until he's seen Ignis and Gladio again.

Still, though, there'll be time to mourn. The sunlight is beautiful and he can focus on that, for now, let the warmth and light lift his spirits while the rest of his mind processes all that's changed. He lifts his camera as he walks, and for once in his life, _everything_ looks like a good shot. He starts with the flowers, then the cloudless blue sky, a flare showing up in the corner, then the distant line of trees, then another couple shots of the flowers… he thinks he must have filled up half his memory card by the time he reins himself in.

He’ll have time to take more pictures, but now he should just keep moving. Sighing, he goes to put the camera away in the armiger, using the instinctive motion even as his stomach drops with the knowledge that it won't work. But then it disappears.

Prompto's glad there's no one there to see, because his freakout is not cute. He makes a noise halfway between a shout and a sob, tears up, jumps as high as he can with a whoop and curses up a storm when he comes down. Because if the armiger is still there, then - well then, Noct's _alive_.

“I don’t know _how_ you did it, Noct,” he says under his breath. “Screw destiny, what destiny, right?” He shakes his head and pulls his gun out of nothing. The weight of it settles in his hands, and he grins for a second before putting it away.

He won’t have much need for a gun now, and the thought of it makes him break into tears of joy again.  He feels like a weight he's been carrying since Insomnia fell has lifted from his chest.  He wipes his face roughly, but the tears don't stop coming, so he lets it happen, keeps walking and wiping his eyes. 

It’s maybe half a mile on, and he's hit the edge of the sunflower fields and come out into what looks like a wild area of grass, when the chocobo barrels him over.

Prompto can’t handle too much more of this - he doesn’t think he could get any happier, but then there’s a _fucking chocobo_ right up in his face, pecking at his pockets like he might have gysahl greens hiding on him, butting its head against his chest when he doesn’t respond. It’s not like Prompto missed chocobos as much as he missed Noctis. But a world with _both of them_ back in it, that’s a world Prompto doesn’t even know how to respond to anymore.

He throws his arms around the chocobo’s neck and hugs it tight, until it starts making confused little chirps.

“Wish I had some greens for you,” he says, rubbing its softly feathered head. It shouts a _kweh_ right in his face. It’s a pretty bird, a bright yellow that’s almost white. Prompto thinks it might be a girl.

“How about you and me ride on back to the Citadel, huh?” he asks it. The chocobo has no saddle or bridle on it, but that doesn’t mean much. It could be wild; they’re still usually willing to help. 

The chocobo gives him another, thankfully quieter, _kweh_ , which might be agreement.

He hears a rustling in the grass, and his hand is out to retrieve his gun, but before he can pull it into existence, he hears a voice he knows. “Hey, kid, you get Argent there to give you the time of day?”

Prompto looks up, hand still on the chocobo’s - Argent’s - neck, and smiles until his face hurts when he sees Wiz there.

“Wiz! Hey! How are you doing? Is she one of yours? She’s gorgeous!”

Wiz shakes his head, looking a little taken aback. Well, Prompto did just show up out of nowhere to babble about chocobos. “She’s not mine. Argent there is a proper wild chocobo. Her mother got loose last year, and she turned up in the next clutch.”

“Wow, really? I didn’t think chocobos handled the dark that good.” Prompto bends right away to pet the chocobo’s head, and doesn’t notice how Wiz’s lips press together and his eyebrows go up in confusion.

“Well, her mother was something special,” Wiz says quietly. “You know, kid, I think she really likes you. I bet she’d let you hitch a ride.”

“Do you think?” Prompto says. After all this time, it seems like as big of a blessing as the first time he got to ride a chocobo.

“I do think. Here, give her these.” Wiz digs in his vest pocket and pulls out a paper bag, holding it out to Prompto. “Gysahl greens.”

“How did you get -“ Prompto starts, and then stops, because the chocobo is already biting at the bag. “Okay, okay, give me five seconds, Argent!” He pulls out a handful and watches her neck them down, smiling.

“She’s a good bird. Stronger than most. Where are you headed?”

“The Citadel,” Prompto says. “I need to find Noctis. Hah, I guess he’s King Noctis now! I wonder if he’ll have a coronation.” If Iggy had anything to say about it, Prompto was sure he would. He hopes it won’t happen before he gets there.

Wiz takes a step back and blinks. “That’s going to be a long ride,” he says, somewhat flatly. “But I’m sure she’ll try.”

“How far out am I?” Prompto asks, a little surprised himself. “It can’t be more than a day?”

“Two, at least,” Wiz says. “We moved out quite a bit."

“Damn.” Whatever the hell knocked him out of the fight, it knocked him out hard. Maybe an Astral  _did_ reach down and move him.

“Let me get you a canteen and some food,” Wiz says. “Just stay right here for a minute.”

“Okay, yeah,” Prompto agrees, looking around at the landscape again. He really doesn’t know where he is. And he has no idea what happened. No matter how he wracks his brain, he doesn’t remember anything past seeing Noct walk up the stairs to the throne room. He just has to get back home. He knows one of them will know what happened. He can’t wait to hear the story from Noct.

Wiz walks off, towards a barn that Prompto can see now he’s looking for it, on the edge of the field nearest what looks like either a road or a river from here. Prompto looks at Argent, taps his feet on the ground and his fingers on her feathery shoulder, impatient to get moving. He should wait for Wiz, he knows that, but…

It seems like Argent doesn’t want to wait either. She butts Prompto in the chest, pushing him towards the barn, and towards the road, but on a path different from the one Wiz is taking. She doesn’t let up, either, until he grabs the feathers on her head, protesting. Then she tosses her head towards her back until he gives up and gets on her.

 

* * *

 

Prompto and Argent trot up to the city two and a half days later. It would have been faster, but the sun was going down earlier than Prompto would’ve thought - by the reckoning they’d been keeping, it should’ve been sometime around mid-spring - and it was like he couldn’t keep his eyes open after sunset. He knew it still wasn’t safe at night, that he should be keeping watch over himself and the chocobo, but after ten years of no sun at all, apparently it only took a few hours for his natural sleep patterns to reassert themselves with a vengeance. Maybe Ignis would know why that was. After the third time he'd fallen off the chocobo on the first night, he'd stopped trying.

He's running out of water and rations by the time the remains of the Wall come into view. He complains about this to Argent, and she nearly pecks a hole through his head with her beak. Prompto knows when he's beaten, so he stops that, too.

As they approach the city, Argent keeps up a steady monologue of _kwehs_ and grumbling noises. Prompto knows she’s tired - Six know he would be too if he’d just spent that long carting his own sorry ass around - but she still pitches him off like she’s fresh before they get within a kilometer of the Wall.

“You sure you don’t want to come in? I can scrounge up some greens for you, for sure,” he says. “Better than you’ll find out here! Well, maybe…” Everything they’ve passed has been much greener than he expected. Prompto’s not sure how fast plants grow outside in good sunlight, honestly, but he knows they don’t come up to his knees in just a few days under grow lights. Based on what was around inside Insomnia last time Prompto was here, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to help the chocobo any more than she’ll be able to help herself. He watches her trot off into the distance before he turns towards the city.

The place has recovered fast, Prompto thinks, as he makes his way into Insomnia on foot. The outskirts of the city are relatively empty and in disrepair, but as his feet carry him nearer and nearer the city center, he sees the signs all over. There are fewer marks of daemon attack, and less hastily strung together plastic for greenhouses, and more cars, and just more _people_. 

It’s almost overwhelming, how many people there are. More than he's seen in any one place since the days before Insomnia fell. Has everyone left in the world gathered here? How did they get here, in just a few days?

He hopes it was just a few days. Must have been, right? Maybe everybody’s here for Noct’s coronation. Since Noct’s alive. Prompto feels for his gun in the Armiger, the one remaining assurance he has of that fact. It pops into his hand and he intends to put it away right away, before anyone can see, but instead he startles when a silky, unwelcome voice speaks.

“Waving a gun around in broad daylight? Why I thought that this city was safe now, thanks to you and your friends.”

The drawl sounds like it's right in his ear and Prompto’s gun goes up instantly. He knows that voice too well. And, there, at the end of the street, stands a man who should be dead a hundred times over, waving his fingers at Prompto. It’s impossible, but what’s impossible? Not something the Lucis Caelum line pays any attention to, apparently.

“You’re late,” Ardyn purrs at him. His smile looks genuine, and despite how near he sounds, he’s nearly twenty feet away; still, Prompto twitches and his finger moves towards the trigger.

“I wouldn’t shoot me here. You’ll cause such a fuss.” Ardyn almost glides closer. Prompto remembers that he moves weird, with his balance off-kilter, but he doesn’t remember it looking quite like that. 

“Why aren’t you dead?”

Ardyn sweeps an arm dramatically towards where the Citadel should be. Or. Where the Citadel is? Prompto is dead certain it wasn’t there when he walked up to the ruins of the wall. He knows, logically, that it was in disrepair and then probably destroyed. But. There it is. Tall and shining as ever. His gun doesn’t waver, but he bounces on his toes, feeling off balance.

“I suggest you ask your friends,” Ardyn says.


	2. Chapter 2

The ghost of horrors past glides off after that, and Prompto is left to put his gun away and try to shake himself off. Ardyn hadn’t even gotten near him, but he still feels slimy. And beyond that, out of whack.

It could be that he got a head injury or something. Affected his vision, or his memory. Could be that he was just so absorbed in the changes to the city that his mind blanked it out. But between the missing, or maybe not, Citadel, and the plants outside, and all the people in the city, and even the way that Wiz never greeted him by name…

Prompto’s starting to think that he’s missing some critical intelligence.

When he gets nearer the Citadel grounds, he becomes sure of it. There’s no way, just no way that this was rebuilt to this level in days. Not even weeks. Months, maybe, if an Astral blessed all the workmen with no need for rest, and they still had enough fuel around for the big trucks and earth movers.

Every inch of the Citadel is perfect, just like when they left it, the first time, a lifetime ago. From the flagstones to the highest windows, it is entirely restored. Prompto stands in the middle of the street and gapes like he’s never seen a skyscraper before.

No one bumps into him, or even yells at him for being in the way. He gets to stand there and try to take it all in for what must be close to half an hour. And that, in all honesty, is almost as crazy as the Citadel’s condition. Insomnia’s a busy city. Even at its smallest population, a roadblock made of one idiot Kingsglaive would be enough to annoy.

He doesn’t think about that yet, though. Eventually, it’s the sun slipping behind the Citadel’s pillars that reminds him to get a move on.

 

* * *

 

As he walks through the Citadel gate, his uncertainty gets worse. Despite the perfect condition of the grounds, they’re empty. There should be Crownsguard, and servants, and people with titles he can’t remember milling around. If it looks this _normal_ , the people here should be normal too. Shouldn’t they?

But… there aren’t even guards at the gates. No one is around to check his identification, as he half-runs down the paths leading closer to the palace. No cars in the circle, no chocobos in the stables. No one to look down their nose at him as he barrels through the palace halls, already sweaty and disheveled and getting more and more frantic by the minute.

No one to stop him when he bursts through the giant carved doors of the throne room, the fear of _being alone_ outweighing the fear of interrupting.

No Guard and no Glaives to obstruct his view of the throne, when he stumbles into the chamber and stops cold staring at the black-clad figure sitting in it.

“ _Prom._ ”

Noct comes running down the steps from the throne more animated than Prompto has ever seen him. The Lady Lunafreya is only a few steps behind him, her pretty aristocratic face uncontrolled in her shock and pleasure. Prompto stares, his mouth dropping open. He knew Noct was alive, but he didn’t really expect to see him. He never thought he’d see Lady Lunafreya _at all_.

They wrap him up in a hug, and they’re _real_ , at least as real as Prompto is, they have to be, they’re warm and solid and Noct’s (less scruffy now) beard is scratching against his cheek and Lady Lunafreya’s hair is tickling his shoulder and he wouldn’t hallucinate how her light, watery perfume smells or the way Noct’s belt digs into his hip. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. They have to be…?

He’s babbling. “You’re real, you guys, you’re alive, _Noct_ ,” in combinations that make more or less sense at random. They don’t stop holding him while he makes himself shut up and hug _back,_ one hand on the Lady’s waist because he can't figure out where else to put it and his other arm curled up around Noct’s shoulders.

“We are real,” she says quietly. “It’s very good to meet you in person, Prompto.”

Prompto’s shoulders shake, and he feels the hot sting of tears behind his eyes. “I - I’m sorry, Lady Lunafreya, I’m being rude…” he pulls back a little bit to try and bow, not sure what else to do.

“Prom, it’s okay,” Noct says, and Prompto lets himself cry.

Noct holds him up, and Lunafreya presses a kiss to his temple - a _kiss_ , for _him_ \- and pulls away, squeezing his hand tightly.

“I shall return right away,” she says. Prompto hears her footsteps tap-tap off across the throne room’s tiled floor.

“I thought you were _dead_ ,” Prompto says. Noct sighs, and wraps his other arm around Prompto, burying his fingers in Prompto’s hair, and holds him tighter.

 

* * *

 

Ignis and Gladio aren’t as much of a shock, when Lunafreya tows them into the throne room, even though the last time Prompto saw them they were all three preparing to die for their king. It seems far away, as the afternoon sunlight filters through the Citadel’s huge windows and bathes them all in the kind of glow he’d kill to capture on film.

Gladio greets Prompto with a rib-cracking hug, and says, “What took you so long?”

Iggy tuts and says, “I’m glad to hear your voice again, Prompto.”

Lunafreya pulls all of them into a smaller room, off to the side of the giant throne room, and now no one seems to want to talk.

The little receiving room is still just as perfectly plush and clean as Prompto remembers. But no servants, this time, to silently offer drinks and make him feel awkward. Just Prompto, and Iggy, and Gladio, and, somehow, still, Noct, and somehow, impossibly, Lady Lunafreya.

Lunafreya sits on the couch, and invites him to sit as well, and Prompto drops on the cushion next to her an instant before he realizes that she probably meant for him to sit across and Noct next to her. But she doesn’t object, and Noct sits on Prompto’s other side.

Gladio and Ignis take the chairs across from them, instead. Prompto twists his fingers together, to let off some of the energy coursing through him, and stares at them.

Gladio stares back, grinning. Ignis doesn’t have much use for staring, but Prompto is sure he’s in for having Iggy’s hands all over his face, when he doesn’t have to worry about being improper in front of Noct and the Lady. Prompto remembers what it was like when he’d come back from a long hunt. This feels like that. Like none of them can quite believe their luck at being alive.

“Was it a long trip back, Prompto?” Ignis asks, after a little while of waiting for the rest of them to give him something to work with.

“No,” Prompto tells him. “Like three days on a chocobo. Pretty much due west of here, but I couldn’t tell you where. Big field of sunflowers, really pretty.”

“Out by the chocobo reservation,” Noct murmurs. “Did you see Wiz?”

“Yeah, he helped me get a bird.” Prompto draws his hand across his face, thinking of that weird encounter. He misses the glances that pass between Noct and Gladio.

“So what about you guys? When did you get back? I heard I was - shit,” he says, and then, “Sorry, Lady Lunafreya. Noct, I met Ardyn on my way in.”

Noct doesn’t seem surprised at all, though his mouth narrows into a thin line that reminds Prompto of Regis. “What did he say?”

“Not much. That I was late,” Prompto remembers. “And… he said to ask you why he wasn’t dead.” This time he sees Noct and Lunafreya look over his head at each other and then across the room at Gladio. “…Guys, what the hell is going on?”

Ignis and Lunafreya start to say something at the same time, stop, and Ignis nods and gestures for the Lady to speak.

“We are real,” she says, “but something has happened to us.” She pauses, and places a hand on Prompto’s shoulder; he becomes hyper aware of the slight pressure of her skin on his. “It has been nearly four years since the sun rose.”

“It’s _what_?” Prompto blurts out, extremely loudly, and then slaps his hand over his own mouth. “Sorry. Sorry, but…” He remembers the sequence of events perfectly: Noct returning, a day full of fighting and fire, waking up to the noon sun. He doesn’t understand. He wouldn’t have survived four years _passed out_. Did he lose time? Could you even lose four years of time? “How can that be?”

“You woke up like it was the next morning, right?” Gladio asks. Prompto nods, and Gladio grunts. “Same. Came to in Lestallum. I headed right back here and found out these three had been waiting for a year.”

“I think it was only a month for me,” Noct says. “After the fight with Ardyn.”

“I had the good fortune to awaken not long after that,” Luna tells him. “But we did not know what had happened until Ignis returned to us.”

Between the four of them, they explain. How Noct woke up still sitting on the throne, sure that something had gone catastrophically wrong. How he watched the sun rise and then laid low for a week, and Prompto can read between the lines and tell that his friend was probably a hair away from total catatonic depression and might be sleeping in the throne even now except that Lunafreya found her way to him then. 

She tells him how she awoke in Tenabrae, and as she explains with a small shrug, she had an intuition of where she needed to go. But she skims right over the issue of how both of them are _supposed to be dead_. Prompto opens his mouth to ask, and Ignis shushes him.

Ignis woke up in a Citadel audience room, and Noct explains that the room, that whole wing of the building, in fact, was in ruins before he got there. They’d known, because they’d had plenty of time to explore in the eight months since Luna had arrived. But Ignis, like the two of them, had no memory of the time that had passed.

With Ignis came the library, and with the library came the opportunity to research. 

Gladio returned before they found anything, heralded by the sudden restoration of the training grounds and the Glaive and Guard quarters. A solid year of reading every book the library had to offer had gotten them very, very little. But with Gladio there as well, that was another pair of hands and eyes, and they resumed their search.

Prompto can’t keep his mouth shut any longer. “Why didn’t you guys get help? Half the old Crownsguard is still in Insomnia, why not…”

That complicated series of glances again, and Gladio hums quietly. Prompto knows tight-knit nonverbal communication when he sees and hears it - he used to be able to say that much to the guys himself without a word. It’s just proof that they’ve been together for a long, long time. 

This time it’s Ignis who speaks. “Have you not noticed, Prompto? Have you spoken to anyone since you woke up?”

Prompto shrugs. “Just Wiz. And Ardyn,” he adds with an entirely involuntary shudder.

“You might try with someone on the street,” Ignis tells him. “There are few who can hear us, anymore. Fewer still who can see us and take notice. Not among humans, at any rate.”

Prompto feels his mouth drop open again, but he has nothing to say to that. _What the fuck_? comes to mind, but he heard what Iggy said. He just can’t believe it. But then he thinks about all the people he saw out there, all the cars that carefully wove around him but didn’t honk or yell, the complete lack of reaction (except from Ardyn) when he pulled his gun. 

A curse slips out of his mouth against his best intentions, and he feels his face heat up. “Sorry, I keep doing that,” he mumbles.

“No need. I know it is a shock,” Lunafreya tells him. Her hand is still on his shoulder, and Noct’s has joined it, supporting him from the other side.

Prompto takes a deep breath. “So what the hell - what _are_ we, then?”

He’s at least a little prepared for ‘daemons’, or maybe even ‘ghosts’, something he’s heard of people turning into. 

He’s not prepared for Gladio to look him straight in the eye and say, “Gods.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noct stands. The sunset through the windows shines off his hair and his black suit and the silver fittings of his cape. He presses his hands together, and the light around him becomes… thicker, somehow, the glow of sun seen through dark honey or red wine. It only has the quality where it touches Noct, and it makes his eyes shine the deep, dusky purple of twilight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here I thought I'd be on a slow update schedule. I blame Prompto, to be honest. He's good for getting the words to flow.

They give him the book they found. It’s an ancient thing with a binding that’s been redone more than once and more mended pages than whole. The script is that kind of crazy Old Lucian that looks like a whole bunch of straight vertical lines with no spaces between words, but Ignis gives him a folder full of notes as well.

“As best as we can tell, we were simply the most prominent figures in the area,” Ignis tells him. “After Noct… retook the throne, the plane on which the Astrals walk was unstable. Someone had to fill in the gaps.”

“We are a manifestation of the magic once held by the Kings and Oracles,” Luna says, a followup that leaves Prompto speechless for what’s got to be the fifth time that day. She offers him a reassuring pat on the arm. “The book will explain more.”

Prompto is going to read it, but he doesn’t think it’s going to help that much. His head is still swimming from their attempted explanations as they walk from the little receiving room down to the dining hall, where Ignis promises a meal fit for a celebration.

“He’s been cooking extra ever since the stables showed up again,” Gladio tells Prompto, as they file down the hall. He’s got his hand on Prompto’s shoulder, firm and warm and just as much like a living human being as last time Gladio touched him.

“I made an educated guess that you would follow them,” Ignis says. He hovers near Prompto, not touching, but close. Prompto knows he’s there but not in any, like, magical godlike way or anything. Just in a normal perception kind of way.

“So that happened for everybody? Part of the Citadel showing up again?”

“We believe so. We weren’t able to determine which parts were restored specifically for Noct or Luna, but the Citadel grounds are complete, as of three days ago.”

Prompto nods, slowly. The five of them, restoring the whole Citadel, just by existing. That sounds like insanity, but so does all the rest of it. 

“We know it’s weird,” Gladio says. “You’ll get used to it.”

Prompto snorts. “If you say so, big guy.”

They enter the dining hall as a group. Prompto has only eaten here a couple times before, and he remembers how huge and echoing the place is even with a full royal retinue. It’s even more ridiculous with just the handful of them. At least the long table has been replaced with a normal-sized one - it’s friendlier, even if it looks out of place in the imposing space. 

Prompto ducks into the bathroom to wash his hands and face and tries to forget that he has three days' worth of travel dust on him. Surely the guys won't judge him, even if they all do look a lot cleaner than he remembers them being in the last ten years. He arrives back at the table just as Ignis comes out of the kitchen with a wheeled cart full of food, and he and Gladio pass the dishes around. Despite the grand surroundings, they eat off simple white plates with plain silverware, not too far off from their old camping gear. Prompto thanks the Astrals for that and then wonders if he should be sending a prayer of thanks to Ignis instead.

He says it aloud, instead, before digging into the food.

Dinner is delicious as only Iggy can make it. He’s made Prompto’s old favorite, a meat pie that he’s been complaining for years he can’t do justice to, just like every other recipe he invented before the sun went out. But now, in this restored world, it tastes just as good as Prompto remembers from other, less formal dinners. He eats everything Ignis puts on his plate and listens to the others make quiet, comfortable conversation, occasionally throwing him an update on the state of the world. Prompto lets it flow over and around him. 

Eventually, the conversation lulls enough that he feels he should contribute, but he’s still stuck on the first big piece of news. He figures he may as well work with that. But he’ll start off with the small, easy things. “So, if we’re gods,” he says slowly, “do we get to throw lightning and ice around like the Astrals?” 

Noct shrugs. “Not quite, but watch.”

He stands. The sunset through the windows shines off his hair and his black suit and the silver fittings of his cape. He presses his hands together, and the light around him becomes… thicker, somehow, the glow of sun seen through dark honey or red wine. It only has the quality where it touches Noct, and it makes his eyes shine the deep, dusky purple of twilight. Prompto’s fingers itch towards his camera.

Noct stands there a moment and then spreads his hands. The magic spreads from a point in the center of his chest out through his outstretched fingers, becoming a wide-spaced net of light that blankets the whole room, and everyone in it, in the same golden glow.

Prompto is staring, unable to look away from Noct, who glows like firelight under the blaze of his magic. Beside him, Luna smiles widely and half-stands to kiss Noct on the cheek. She too is glowing, though the paler cast of her hair and skin make her look like silver rather than gold. “Beautiful, darling,” she says. 

“Magic tricks again?” Gladio asks, but he’s smiling. Prompto sees him put a hand on Ignis’s and tap his fingers a few times, and Ignis smiles too.

“I am going to take so many pictures of this,” Prompto says, picking up his camera to match actions to words. He only takes four, though - one of each of his friends.

By the time they’re finished with dinner, Prompto is falling asleep in his dessert plate. He tries his hardest to keep awake, pinching himself and breathing deep to stave off the yawns, but it’s not long before someone notices.

“You okay, Prom?” Gladio asks, poking him in the ribs.

Prompto’s answer is a yawn. “Yeah,” he says when he’s through with that, “I’ve been sleeping a lot.”

Gladio grumbles. “Great, another one,” he says.

Prompto figures he’s talking about Noct, and makes an offended noise. “Least I don’t fall asleep in the daytime,” he slurs. Fuck, he really is about to fall asleep, right here at the fucking table. It would worry him more if he weren’t using all his mental energy on keeping his eyes open.

“Prom, wake up,” Noct says, and he touches Prompto’s shoulder. Prompto is instantly and completely awake.

He sits up straight and blinks. 

“It’s alright,” Luna tells him, smiling. “He does that to me, too.” _What_? Prompto thinks.

“Did you say you hadn’t been falling asleep in the daytime?” Ignis asks.

“Yeah,” Prompto confirms. “Just right at sunset. Figured it was, you know, having real days all of a sudden.” He rubs at his eyes, and blinks, trying to find any trace of the exhaustion that had nearly overwhelmed him. There’s nothing; he feels like he’s just slept eight hours, run five miles and had a cup of coffee. 

Ignis smiles, small but pleased, maybe a little smug. “I suspect we were right about your missing counterpart, Luna.”

Luna downright beams at Prompto. “My Lord Sun,” she says, and sketches the faintest bow from where she sits. Prompto blushes to the roots of his hair.

“What - I mean - _what_?” 

“Don’t be a jerk,” Noct says, and Prompto is about to get annoyed at him, but he’s talking to Luna. Or at least he’s _looking_ at Luna. Could you call the Oracle a jerk? That doesn’t seem okay. Luna’s still smiling, though.

Noct pokes Prompto’s shoulder again. Prompto tenses in anticipation of some other weird status effect, but Noct’s just being Noct this time, it seems. “They think you’re the god of the sun,” he explains.

“They think I’m  _what_?” Astrals, Prompto has to learn how to say ‘what’ in different languages, he’s going to get bored of saying it in Lucian.

“Luna is a goddess of the moon, we believe,” Ignis tells him. “She falls asleep the same way you do, timed to the rise and fall of the moon. We assumed someone would eventually have to take on the same responsibilities for the sun.”

“What about…” Prompto waves his hand. “What Noct did with the sunlight.” That light has faded now, dimming as the sun set. The light now comes from candles on the table and in the chandelier. Prompto is grateful, because he thinks that the dim light might hide the blush that he can’t manage to shake.

Noct shrugs. “Just a thing I can do,” he says. “I mean, I’m still King.”

“Ugh,” Prompto says.

It turns out they’re all the gods of _something_ specific. Prompto didn’t think about that, though he should've, since the Astrals all have their own domains. Ignis admits that he's probably a god of cooking, and more shyly, that he might also have some further talents in tactics than he used to. Gladio doesn’t know exactly what he’s a god of, but Noct says ‘big brothers’ in a tone that’s only half sarcastic. Luna thinks he’s meant to be a protector.

And Noct, well… it was like he said. He was always going to be the King of Light. 

They finish up dinner - dessert is Noct’s special tarts, Ignis’s recipe now pronounced perfect by both Noct and Luna - and retire to one of the sitting rooms, for a while. There’s wine that Prompto knows has gone sour in the cellars on the mortal plane, here still rich and sweet on his tongue. There’s joy with no edge to it, Gladio’s deep laugh mingling with Luna’s clear one as they take it in turns to tease Noct and give Ignis openings for terrible puns. There’s Ignis’s hand on his face, adding the new scars and half-grown beard to his mental image of Prompto. There’s Noct’s shoulder bumping up against his, warm and shaking with silent laughter.

Prompto thinks this might be what heaven is like.

They don’t stop until well into the night, when Luna is starting to show the same signs that Prompto did earlier, and she and Noct are trying to fall asleep on each others’ shoulders. It’s cute, Prompto thinks, but it feels awfully intimate to watch. 

On the other hand, Gladio and Ignis are _also_ falling asleep on each other, Ignis half-tucked into Gladio’s lap on a large armchair, so maybe that’s just… what gods do? Not like Prompto would know. The two of them look… _awfully_ close. Close in the way that Prompto remembers them shying away from, back when they were all just on a road trip. And maybe that’s why he thinks it’s awkward, watching the two couples touch, even if they could still pass it off as platonic. Every time he’s seen two people get so close, they’ve always pulled back when they see him looking.

Now they don’t, even when Ignis turns toward Gladio, and Gladio tilts his head to Ignis. Prompto is about to take a picture of the two of them looking like they might kiss when they actually do.

The click of the shutter is loud in the quiet room, and Noct sits up a little, sees the mortified expression on Prompto’s face, and laughs.

“That can’t be the first time you caught them being sappy,” he says.

“It is!” Prompto squeaks. He quickly clicks back to the picture. Gladio’s eyes are closed, and Ignis’s hands are wrapped loosely around the back of his neck. At the click, Ignis cocked his head and Gladio looked over his shoulder at the camera, but in the picture they’re both relaxed and smiling against each other’s mouths.

Prompto looks up and meets Gladio’s stare. “Sorry! I’ll delete it if you want.”

“No need,” Ignis answers for them. “Unless it turned out badly.”

“We’ll go again and get you a good one,” Gladio adds. 

“Uh, that’s okay! Unless you want me to,” Prompto says, willing himself to shut up. He’s stepped in something he doesn’t _get_ , much more human and immediate than the whole… everything else. “I mean, I know, not like you’d want me to watch, but -”

Lunafreya, Astrals bless her, reaches behind Noct's back to put her hand on Prompto’s shoulder, and he goes quiet.

“I don’t know. We could show you a thing or two,” Gladio says. Ignis looks less scandalized by that idea than Prompto expects out of him.

“It must be late, if this is where our conversation turns. Let’s show Prompto to his room, shall we?” Luna whispers to Noct. Noct nods tiredly and stands up.

Ignis’s head picks up at the tap of Noct’s shoes, but Gladio holds him there in his lap. Prompto tries not to watch any longer. He shouldn’t have been watching in the first place, probably. Maybe? Luna and Noct didn’t think it was weird.

Neither does Prompto, exactly, not that they’re together - they should have been together a long time ago - but that they’re not hiding it. That they’re willing to kiss, casually, in front of their King and Queen. They spent all the time Prompto’s known them denying their obvious love for each other, and now they want him to _take pictures_.

He would totally take pictures, to be fair, not like he doesn’t have a whole album of Gladio ass and Ignis unbuttoned shirt for _personal time_. But they never _talked about it_.

“C’mon, Prom,” Noct says. Prompto pops up off the couch.

“Goodnight, guys.”

“‘Night,” Gladio echoes.

“Goodnight, Prompto,” Ignis says. “If you can’t sleep in the morning, come help me with breakfast.”

“Can do!” Prompto’s still kind of wired from whatever Noct did to him, so he figures he’ll be staying up and sleeping late, but if it makes Iggy happy.

He follows Noct and Luna down the hall, and up just one flight of stairs. He remembers this path from back before Noct got his apartment, when he’d visit him at the Citadel for a couple heavily supervised hours at a time. This is where the royal family lives. He gets steadily more nervous as they lead him down the long hall. Luna stops at a door just down from Noct’s old room.

“I hope you find it to your liking,” she says, and hands him the key hanging by a ribbon from the door.

“I’m sure it’s great! Guy like me, I’d be happy with a bunk downstairs,” he says, taking it.

Servant’s quarters wasn’t where he would’ve expected to be put, if he’d thought about it, but he’s spent so much time living in that kind of place that it’s what he’s used to. He’s a little scared of what he’s going to find behind that geometrically inlaid, reinforced door.

“That would hardly be the place to put a member of the family,” Luna says. And then, seemingly oblivious to the emotional storm she’s set in motion in Prompto’s brain, she yawns and leans against Noct’s side.

“We’re all staying near here,” Noct says. “It’s too big of a place to separate ourselves that much.” He points out Ignis’s, Gladio’s, and Luna’s rooms. “Just knock if you need one of us.” He looks at Luna, who now has her eyes closed and is starting to slump, and says, “I better get her to bed. See you in the morning, Prom. It’s good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back,” Prompto says, and watches Noct pick Luna up like she weighs nothing and take her two doors down. She waves goodnight over Noct's shoulder, and Prompto waves back. Then he turns to his own door.

The key opens it, because it’s a key, and being afraid that it might judge him for trying to open a door like this is _silly_. It opens into a little hall covered in fancy wallpaper. Because of course it couldn’t just be a bedroom. This is probably the room of some long-dead prince; princes couldn’t make do with just _one_ room. This thing is practically a house on its own, Prompto thinks, as he walks into the sitting area. Two big plush couches greet him, as well as more fancy wallpaper and a rug that’s thicker than most mattresses he’s slept on. 

It’s all way too much, he thinks, even as he runs hot water to fill the huge bathtub. Eight days ago - as far as he’s concerned, anyway - he was living in what amounted to a hunters’ dormitory, eating meat with holes in it where the daemonified parts had dissolved out, and bickering with his neighbors about how best to ration the limited water supply. Four days ago he was following his King to his death. Now he’s throwing his filthy Kingsglaive uniform on the patterned tile floor of a royal bathroom, like he owns the place or something. 

He puts his nerves aside for just long enough to sink into the water, since he doesn’t think he’s ever had a bath this nice even before the world went to shit, and some things deserve to be savored. He dunks his head under, comes up, and takes a deep breath, and another.

Even the water smells fancy. Or maybe that’s what water’s supposed to smell like when it’s not full of disinfectants and _holy fuck his tattoo is gone_.

He holds his arm up in front of him, even slaps his own wrist a few times and rubs at the blank space, but the black lines that have been with him as long as he remembers don’t reappear. 

He’s always wanted the fucking thing off his body and it doesn’t make any fucking _sense_ that he should cry over it. But he is, and he can’t stop, the relief and the confusion and the shock all tangling up in his head and spilling out his tear ducts. He sobs until he can barely breathe, curled around himself with his face just inches from the water, lightheaded from the heat and the steam in his lungs. Every time he gets himself together enough for a single breath it hits him again that he doesn’t know what he _is_.

Even when he knew he was a clone, created, an MT, he knew what he _was_. He hated it, hated himself, but he knew. Now he feels like he’s back to eight years old, staring at his wrist in his room at night, wondering, scared, lost.

_Gods_ , Gladio said. Like it was easy. Like it explained everything. It doesn’t explain shit, it’s just a word. Prompto’s seen the power of the Astrals, the only gods he knows, and the five of them aren’t like that. At least the Astrals have legends. At least they know what they’re supposed to do.

Why gods? How in whatever hells there are was it even possible to make them gods?

And why -well, he understands the others. He understands Noct and Luna, who were divine to start with. And you couldn’t have a King of Lucis without his Shield, could you? And Ignis had worshippers, or at least fans, while he was alive. But… _why him_?

What the fuck does anybody need with a god of… uselessness? Awkwardness? Taking inadvisable selfies? How is _Prompto_ supposed to be a _sun god_? Who would even think to connect him to the sun? He thought he’d grown out of feeling like this, like some booming voice is about to announce to the world that he doesn’t deserve to be where he is. The place he had with Gladio and Ignis, waiting for Noct, he was comfortable with that. Even a little proud, of how useful he was able to be, and the duty he had taken on. But everything is so perfect here and he’s lost again.

He’s stopped sobbing but he’s still dripping tears and snot into this ancient royal bathtub. He scrubs the heel of his left hand across his face. His right hand remains in front of him, like if he takes his eyes away, the illusion of humanity will break.

There’s probably rules, he thinks. Even the Astrals have some kind of rules. Maybe. Ifrit sure didn’t. Maybe there’s something in the book. He’ll read that, it’ll explain things, he can go down and face his friends again.

That’s enough to hold on to while he washes his hair twice, shaves, and scrubs years of feeling vaguely unclean off of his skin. And if his breath hitches every time he sees his bare wrist, there’s no one to hear it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey, I am the sun, show some respect.”
> 
> “You’ll always be blondie to me,” Gladio deadpans.
> 
> Prompto flops on his back, looking up at the sun. He can stare right into it without it ever hurting now. That’s gotta be magic, but on the scale of things that have gone weird lately it’s very, very low.
> 
> “At least you don’t change.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised someone Ardyn in this chapter, but there is no Ardyn. There is, however, a lot of talking about Ardyn. That jerk cannot handle being offstage for long.

Prompto doesn’t sleep that night. He’s still thoroughly awake even after his embarrassing crying fit, and while trying to read Old Lucian might put him to sleep normally, the subject matter is important enough that he keeps his mind on it for a while. It’s painful to get through and the notes, written in Luna’s elegant script, aren’t much help.

The first chapter is literally a list of all the gods anyone had ever heard of when it was written, followed by a mess of names that Luna’s notes indicate are a lineage of some now-unknown family. Prompto makes it halfway through the third chapter, which is some kind of classification of types of magic, by the time he notices the first rays of sun filtering through his study window.

He should be exhausted, but the sunrise seems to have given him a third wind to go on top of the second wind from Noct. He looks at the book, sighs, and decides to go help Ignis.

The clothes in the closet are uniformly royal black. Prompto throws on the first pair of pants he finds that aren’t slacks, and rummages around for a tank top until he has to admit defeat and settle for a short sleeved tee. They fit him pretty well. He wonders whose clothes these were, or if they just showed up the same way he did.

He goes to the bathroom to fix his hair only to be surprised with the fact that it doesn’t need fixing. He runs a hand through the perfect spikes that should be a sticking-out mess and they spring right back into place. Frowning, he looks at himself more closely. He’s got freckles again, with the sunlight, but aside from that his skin looks… weirdly perfect, like he’s never had a pimple or a shaving nick in his life. His eyelashes are as black with nothing on them as he’s always made them with makeup.

And yet his eyes are still red underneath even though he stopped crying hours ago. Figures.

When he walks into the kitchen, Ignis greets him from behind the bench, smiling and waving a knife in his general direction. “I thought you might still be awake. Help me make omelettes.”

Prompto slips into place beside him, pulls the cutting board to himself and grabs a knife of his own. “I’m not even tired. This is nuts.”

“Noct once gave Luna enough energy that she didn’t sleep again until the new moon,” Ignis says. “He’s gained control since then. I imagine you’ll fall asleep tomorrow when the sun goes down.” He passes Prompto a bowl full of mushrooms, and Prompto starts slicing.

“That’d be nice. This place is pretty lonely with everyone asleep.”

“It’s much too large for our little group at the best of times. Though your presence here does make up for some of the lack.”

Prompto snorts. “I doubt I’m doing all that much,” he says, more wistfully than he intended.

Ignis tilts his head toward Prompto. “We did miss you,” he says. “Greatly.”

“Sorry I took so long,” Prompto says to the mushrooms.

“We’re honestly just glad to have you back.”

Prompto thinks he can name the fear they had, that’s causing Ignis’s voice to waver ever so slightly when he says that. He won’t say it, though. He doesn’t want confirmation that they also think there’s no reason why he should be here. “I always catch up eventually,” he says with a smile he knows Ignis can hear.

“You always do,” Ignis agrees. He grabs the cutting board from Prompto the moment he’s finished with his vegetables and whisks them away to a pan on the stove, unerringly letting them drop into the heated oil.

“How are you doing that?” Prompto asks. “You know exactly where everything is. Can you see again?” Becoming a god fixed so much about Prompto’s body, did it touch Ignis’s as well?

Ignis chuckles. “No, it’s simply familiarity. In the Citadel we are all much as we once were.” He looks at Prompto with his head tilted. “It’s only on the mortal plane that the largest differences come to light."

“All of the differences?” Prompto looks down at his bare wrist. “‘Cause I think I’ve noticed some of them already.”

“Not all of them. Some of the changes are obvious everywhere, yes, but those seem to be more minor flaws.”

 _Minor flaws_. Acne, his pale eyelashes, sure, minor. The other thing… “Ardyn had a different walk,” he says, before Iggy can press him about his own changes. “Looked more comfortable.”

“You met him in the city, of course,” Ignis replies, as though he didn’t notice that Prompto has just changed the subject from himself. “It’s hard to say how much he’s truly been healed.”

“I’m gonna guess not enough.” Prompto leans back on the bench, watching Ignis at the stove stirring the vegetables, using sound and smell to be sure of when to scrape the onions off to the side and add the mushrooms. He’s seen him do it a thousand times at campsites, but never in this clean, warm, sunlit kitchen. Ignis looks comfortable. The tension in his back is gone for the first time Prompto can remember since he was a teenager.

It’s hard to believe that the guy who killed him is hovering around the city right outside their window.

“He can’t come to the Citadel,” Ignis says, unnervingly reading Prompto’s thoughts. He’d suspect _that_ of being magic, if it weren’t how Iggy has always been. “Gladio won’t let him pass the threshold.”

“Gladio can hold him off?” Prompto asks, surprised. Not because he doesn’t trust Gladio to protect them, but because Ardyn is basically a force of nature. Might as well try to hold back a flood with a literal shield.

“He’s put a barrier around the entire grounds,” Ignis confirms. “Ardyn cannot cross it. He is still powerful, there’s no doubt of that, but the difference is not as great as it once was.”

Prompto turns that over for a minute. The King’s Shield now shielding all that remains of his court. It’s poetic, for as much as Prompto knows about poetry. “Gladio must love that.”

Ignis smiles. “I rather think he does.”

 

* * *

 

Prompto knows that he’s not going to win an unarmed sparring match with Gladio, but somehow he still lets himself be roped into it, even after all this time.

Gladio seems to be enjoying it, the way he’s grinning as he shoves Prompto into the dirt again. Prompto rolls right back up and launches himself into a punch, only to be neatly grabbed, misdirected, and thrown to the ground with Gladio’s knee in his back.

“Okay, okay, I give!” he yells when Gladio locks his arm behind him. The Shield drops his grip and flops on the dusty ground cross-legged next to him. Prompto is slower to get to sitting, but when he does, he finds himself grinning from ear to ear. Gladio’s expression mirrors his own.

“Is this just what you do all day now? Beat up smaller guys?”

Gladio snorts. “I don’t have to practice to take _you_ down, blondie.”

Prompto tries for a joking tone when he says, “Hey, I am the _sun_ , show some respect.” It feels sacrilegious to even say it, but Gladio reacts like it’s normal.

“You’ll always be blondie to me,” he deadpans.

Prompto flops on his back, looking up at the sun. He can stare right into it without it ever hurting now. That’s gotta be magic, but on the scale of things that have gone weird lately it’s very, very low.

“At least you don’t change,” he says. Maybe his tone is a little too wistful, because Gladio huffs and reaches down to punch him in the arm.

“Let’s go another round,” he suggests. Prompto whines, but is considering giving it a shot - he doesn’t feel as tired as he normally would after Gladio beat his ass - when Noct walks down into the yard, saving him from his own bad choices.

“Hey guys,” Noct greets them. Prompto has to squint, his eyes adjusting, when he sits up to look at Noct. In the full daylight, the King of Light _glows_. And smiles when Prompto makes eye contact with him.

“Will you turn that off,” Gladio complains, his hand raised to block the light out. “There’s nobody to impress.”

“I can’t help being this brilliant,” Noct says with a grin. He flops down next to them, completely ignoring the fact that he’s wearing black velvet robes of state and he’s covered himself in dust. Well, Prompto figures, Gladio’s right, the only person here to impress is him. He’s impressed, but it's not like Noct ever had to try that hard to get him there.

Gladio grumbles, and Noct’s shine turns down a bit until he’s tolerable to look at. “Missed you at breakfast, King Nightlight.”

“I slept late,” Noct says. “Long day yesterday. Did I keep you awake all night, Prom?”

“Yeah,” Prompto says. “I mean, not that I’m complaining! I’ve been doing way too much sleeping.”

“That’s what Luna always says, too. I don’t get it. You guys have a perfect excuse to nap all the time.”

“Not all the time,” Prompto objects. “Just at night. That’s when all the fun stuff happens.”

Noct’s sly smile should be a warning, but Prompto is still taken by surprise when he says, “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you awake for the fun stuff anytime.”

Prompto about chokes. Surely Noct didn’t mean that the way it sounded. He flashes back to last night, to Gladio offering to give Prompto a show; did all his friends just become _massive teases_ while he was away? “See, dude, to you that _still_ means napping,” he says. Only a little strangled. That’ll do.

Noct doesn’t seem to have noticed anything wrong anyway. “Don’t forget about video game marathons.”

“Sure, but not every night.”

Noct waves his hand dismissively, making Gladio wince again at the flash of light. “Nah. You’ll sleep other nights.”

“Got it all planned out, huh?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Noct says with a grin. “We had four years to guess what you were gonna be in charge of. I came up with a lot of plans.”

“Y’know, you owe me,” Gladio says. “I’m the one who had odds on him being the sun.”

“Shut up. We don’t know he’s _not_ the god of chocobos. You can double up.”

Prompto leans forward in interest. He hasn’t gotten to this part in the book, yet, if it’s even there - and god of chocobos sounds like a much more fun and appropriate job than god of the _fucking sun_. “Who doubles up?” he asks.

“Luna still has healing,” Gladio says. “A lot of it, more than she used to be able to do.”

“Specs told you he’s got cooking and strategy, and that’s two things that he was definitely better than any living human at anyway,” Noct adds, “so I bet he’s got other stuff up his sleeve.”

Prompto nods. “That makes you two kinda boring, then. I mean, Iggy told me about Gladio’s barrier,” he says, “which is super cool, by the way. But you don’t do anything _else_.”

Gladio grins. “Thanks,” he says. Then, “We’re not boring. We’re straightforward.”

“Eh. Same thing.”

“Brat,” Gladio rumbles. Noct grins at his Shield.

Even Noct is more relaxed here, Prompto thinks. In the last twenty-four hours he’s smiled more than in a month after his father died. Maybe it’s time, maybe it’s the surroundings, maybe it’s having Luna back. There’s a lot that’s _right_ for Noct here.

“Gives the rest of us a lot to do,” Prompto complains.

“Pretty sure the four of you and the Six can deal with everything else.”

“Four of us?” Prompto asks. Then his stomach drops, as he considers who else he’s recently met who’s unexpectedly not-dead. “Oh, fuck.”

“You don’t have to be scared of him,” Gladio says. “But it’s probably better not to talk about him.”

Prompto watches Noct lift a single eyebrow, an expression that he totally ripped off from Ignis. Gladio seems tense. “Uh, guys, what’s up? I thought Iggy said he couldn’t get past the barrier.”

“There’s some other stuff going on with him,” Noct says. “Wanted to talk to you about that, actually.”

And maybe Gladio’s sphere of influence isn’t as simple as Prompto thought, because he thinks he feels the temperature drop thirty degrees. The way Gladio’s looking at Noct, he might as well be channeling the Glacian herself.

“Don’t get Sunshine involved in that too,” Gladio says flatly.

Noct fixes his Shield with a cool, blank stare. “He gets to know,” he says.

Gladio grumbles and sits back, a scowl on his face.

Noct ignores him. “I’ve tried to contact him a few times. I’d like to talk to him.”

“Uh, okay,” Prompto says, looking back and forth between his friends. He feels like when he was a kid and stepped in on his parents fighting, knowing that there’s more history there than he understands and he won’t be able to fix the argument if he tries to get into it. So he tries to keep this conversation going and maybe past whatever Gladio’s so angry about. “So we’re definitely talking about Ardyn, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Take me through this again, dude, I thought you said you wanted to talk to Ardyn.”

“I want him back,” Noct says, simply. “He was a good man once. I thought I was giving him peace when I killed him.”

Gladio says, in an aside to Prompto, “He’s just got a hell of a misplaced sense of guilt.”

Noct frowns, the unfamiliar angles of his face darkening would have been a pout in his younger days. “He wouldn’t have wanted this.”

“The last time Ardyn wanted something he literally _killed us all_ ,” Prompto points out, waving his finger in a circle to encompass the three of them as well as Ignis and Luna, wherever they are. “I mean yeah we came _back_ but that doesn’t make it _okay_.”

“I won’t forget that,” Noct says. The light plays across his face and casts shadows over his eyes. “I’m not forgiving him, either.”

“What’s this about then? You don’t actually feel bad for him,” Prompto says.

“Think about it, Prom,” Noct says softly. “He’s alone, he’s failed at the one thing he’s been trying for two thousand years. And he still hasn’t found any peace.”

“You were in that crystal too long, buddy.” Prompto fights against thinking about the ragged figure he met in the street, ignored by any passers-by. “I think it did something to your head.”

Noct snorts. Very unkingly sound, Prompto thinks. “Yeah, it definitely did.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Gladio growls about it the whole time, but Noct explains himself. He wants Prompto to see if he can find Ardyn again, and then, see if he’ll just  _talk_ _._ Not bring him back to the Citadel, just see if he can find out what Ardyn really wants, and if there's any way for him to get it. Ardyn liked Prompto, Noct says, which was sort of broadly true if you looked at it sideways through daemon-tinted lenses.

At least three times Gladio tells Prompto that he doesn’t have to do it, that Gladio’s refused to try himself, that Ignis and Noct have both already failed, and Noct agrees on all counts. He’s only asking in case Prompto wants to give it a shot. It’s not a royal command; he wouldn’t force Prompto into it.

Prompto thinks about being like this, out and away from the Citadel, with no one to speak to at all if what Iggy told him was right (of course it was). If it were literally anyone else in the world, he’d probably say yes with no hesitation at all. But it’s _Ardyn_.

Eventually, he asks Noct to give him a while to think about it. Noct accepts his answer with a beaming smile.

 

* * *

 

That day's pretty good, and the next, and the next. Ignis catches him up on the latest world news. He and Gladio spar. Noct shows him more magic tricks and keeps him awake one night to play video games. (That night, Luna curls up to read on the couch behind Noct’s head, occasionally stroking his hair. It’s the most romantic thing Prompto has ever witnessed.)

Prompto gets touched and hugged more than he ever has in his life. The guys have always slapped his ass or clapped his shoulder after a fight, that’s fine, but during their time without him they all seem to have developed the habit of casual hugs. Noct, in particular, is always in Prompto’s personal space. Even Luna, who in Prompto’s head is an untouchable, marble-carved vision of perfection, has a tendency to hug whenever she’s pleased.

This is one of those things that Prompto doesn’t exactly have a _problem_ with, but he can’t handle with equanimity. His friends are all beautiful - and now perfected, in the same way he is, not quite unnatural but definitely on the border. And they all have a comfort with each other that exceeds anything Prompto’s experienced before.

Just one more thing making him feel out of place, even as he leans into every touch like a flower towards the sun.

Or like a flower towards him, he’s noticed. In the Citadel gardens, the plants seem normal; but as soon as he steps outside the walls, their leaves and flowers turn towards him as he passes them by. He can’t decide at first if it’s cool or creepy. Eventually he settles on reassuring. Ignis was right. He can't talk to humans, they walk around him without noticing him, without looking up from their phones or their daydreaming. But the plants know he's there.

In the daytime, Ignis often goes out into the town, to hear what he can hear about how the reconstruction efforts are going. He hears more than most, he says, because so many people pray to him when they need logistical advice. (Noct rolled his eyes at that, and Prompto was sure he was missing something. It turned out this was an old brag of Ignis’s. Prompto doesn’t see what getting prayed to has to do with anything.) He returns with news, both in what he’s heard and in the papers he carts back to make Noct or Gladio read to him.

It takes something like five days before Gladio takes the newspaper from Ignis and slaps it right into Prompto’s chest. “Here, you’re on duty,” he says.

Prompto, who has always hated newspaper duty, takes it and says, “You got it, big guy.”

He reads Ignis the entire paper, front page to comics, and from then on Ignis remembers to include him in the rotation. That feels pretty good, and better is that Prompto starts to learn about the rhythms of the city as it is now. He learns that there’s some semblance of a government now, with Cor Leonis directing it, if not exactly royalty. Yet. Ignis thinks there is a better than even chance that Cor will be crowned king, simply because the people of Lucis don’t know what to do without one. He then starts muttering about the opportunity for new forms of government and the sheer audacity of placing anyone else on the Lucii’s throne, and that’s the point at which Prompto stops paying attention to the words he’s saying and just enjoys listening to him.

Politics aren’t important to Prompto, now that his friends are out of them. It’s his people he wants to know about. He’s lucky enough to hear that most of his friends who survived the dark are still doing well. Cindy and Wiz both occasionally pop up in Ignis’s news, and he sees Vyv’s byline on several of the pictures in the new paper, the _Insomnia Sun_. He reads one morning that the daemons are considered eradicated from the populated areas of Lucis, and that night Iggy pulls out some of the _really_ nice wine, the stuff that was probably bought by Regis’s grandfather, and they celebrate.

Luna didn't know about his barcode, Ignis can't see it, Noctis doesn't notice, and Gladio doesn't ask. That's about the best Prompto can hope for while he sorts his own shit out. And he does get more comfortable, or at least, more used to his discomfort.

He reads more of the book every night. He's starting to get a hold on it now, starting to understand what the others mean when they talk about personifications of force and loci of magic. There are rules, he's starting to understand. The problem is just that none of them know exactly what they are. Prompto doesn't like that much, but it's easier than them not existing.

 

* * *

 

The book says that gods rarely or never interact with mortals ‘excepting when deliberately called’. Prompto figures that must be like when Noct summoned the Astrals, and assumes it’ll never become relevant information for him.

He finds out he’s wrong about a week after the fall equinox, when he wakes up in the middle of the night.

At first he assumes, and what did Ignis always tell him about assumptions, that Noct’s come into his room to get him out of bed for some reason. “Noct? What’s wrong?” he mumbles, and then he hears the little, nervous voice.

It says, _please make sure you come back,_ and Prompto sits up sharply and looks behind the black drapes on his giant four-poster bed, which reveals nothing. The voice comes again, and this time it says, _we don’t want you to go again_. It still sounds like it’s coming from behind him, and he whips his head around to see. But there’s nothing there.

 _Please return to us as soon as you are able_ , the voice says. It sounds louder this time. Prompto feels it, almost, like an itching in the back of his head. It sounds like a girl, maybe a teenager, and when it comes again, saying _I know you have to go but please remember we need you_ , it hitches like she’s crying.

“Where are you?” Prompto says aloud, and that’s apparently all it takes.

His overly fluffy mattress and black curtains dissolve, and are replaced by plywood walls and a threadbare rug. He’s sitting on the rug the same way he was sitting on the mattress, and he scrambles to his feet as the floor solidifies, looking around for enemies, exits, weapons, and things he recognizes, in that order. The Crownsguard trained you for magic after a while. But there’s no enemies, just a teenage girl in pajamas staring at him from her bed.

“Oh crap, I’m sorry,” he gets out before she can talk, and then thinks it’s stupid, that she can’t see him and she must be looking at something else. He looks behind him just in case.

“Your Radiance…?” she says, hesitating.

Oh, fuck.

“You’re the one who was… praying?” he guesses.

She nods, her eyes still wide. “I prayed that the sun would return,” she says.

“Oh! Uh, well. I heard you,” Prompto says. They stare at each other some more. “The sun isn’t going anywhere. It’s just winter. It’s not like before,” he adds.

Her eyebrows knit together. “I know that. I was _praying_.”

“Why would you pray for something you know is gonna happen?”

More staring.

“Okay, I guess I don’t really get the prayer thing.”

“But… you’re a god?”

“I - yeah? Wait. Yes. I heard you, so I must be… what you were praying to.”

“The Sun,” she says, and Prompto can hear the capital letters.

“Yep. That’s me. …I’m not going anywhere, you know. I’ll be here through the winter. And the spring, and the summer, and… forever, after that, as far as I know.”

She sort of relaxes, at that. “Thank you, Radiant One,” she murmurs. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Goodnight,” she says.

“Goodnight,” Prompto echoes, and before he’s finished the word, the girl’s room is fading away into black, and when he blinks the black is the black of the drapes around his bed once again.

He’s shaking, he notices distantly, his fingers quivering when he holds his hand in front of his face. He grabs one of the pillows, hugs it and presses his face into it. It shouldn’t be long before he falls asleep again.

He knows that it’s a new moon tonight, because he and Luna woke and fell asleep at almost exactly the same time. So he knows that Noct will be the only one to wake up if he knocks on their door.

He thinks about it, for a long time, but by the time he’s made a decision, the rays of the sun are peeking through his windows.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately I got distracted from this for a while by the kinkmeme. How dare it have so many good prompts? But new year, new goals, and I'm aiming to have a chapter of this up a minimum of once a month from now on. I'll be alternating with another long WIP that should have its first chapter go up in two weeks.
> 
> At last, we have achieved Ardyn!
> 
> Thanks to [marmolita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmolita/) for betaing/letting me yell at her about this chapter! Mistakes, of course, are all mine.

He does actually tell Noct about it later. That afternoon they’re in Noct’s room, him and Noct and Luna, hanging out on the ridiculous brocaded sofa and overly plush carpet with game controllers in their hands. The game isn’t holding their attention; Noct only has what was here when the Citadel was destroyed, which isn’t much. Even Luna has already beaten it four or five times through. 

So when Prompto says, “Hey, I got a prayer last night,” Noct looks down from the screen.

“Only _one_ prayer?” he says, with that little half-smile. “Dude, I get like five hundred of those every night.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the greatest, _whatever_ ,” Prompto says, waving his hands dismissively. “Some of us are new at this.”

“Who’d you get it from?”

Prompto hooks his elbows on the cushions of the couch, letting his controller dangle from one hand. “Some kid who wanted to know if the sun was coming back.”

“Did you tell her?”

“‘Course I did.”

“So, is it?”

“What?!”

Noct looks down at him seriously. “Well, it’s kind of your call.”

Prompto stares at him in disbelief.

“It’s the truth,” Luna says. “It’s not that the Sun and Moon have power over us; it is that we _are_ them. If you wish the Sun not to rise you only have to tell it.”

Prompto makes several attempts to start a question and fails at all of them. Honestly, his first instinct is to curl up and roll under the couch, but that’s probably just a step too far in front of Lady Lunafreya, no matter how cool she’s turning out to be.

“How does _that_ work?” he asks, finally.

Noct and Luna exchange a quick, affectionate glance over his head. Why are they always super cute when they’re in the process of giving him existential crises? Prompto may never find out.

Then Noct smirks, and Prompto knows what _that_ means. “You dick, you’re messing with me,” he accuses.

“We’re messing with you,” Noct confirms.

Prompto swats him on the knee and attempts to convey his utter betrayal in the look he gives Lunafreya. She covers her mouth to hide her smile, but her eyes sparkle.

“I apologize, Prompto. I couldn’t resist.”

“You guys! One of these days I’m gonna take you seriously and we’re going to end up embarrassing ourselves because I think I can shoot plasma out of my eyes, or…” Prompto rambles on about their inevitable public humiliation. Luna begins giggling as Prompto describes the projected catastrophe, and eventually Noct shoves him in the side of the head, not unkindly, to get him to stop talking.

“Chill,” he advises. “For all we know just us thinking you can do something will let you do it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Not a lot of it does?” Noct says, shrugging. “I never knew what the Astrals were capable of either, not really. I wonder if they are.”

“That’s just weird to think about.” Prompto still remembers seeing Titan rise, like the earth itself stood up to command respect. His might had seemed unlimited, then. Prompto knows it isn’t, now, but it’s still hard to imagine an Astral as uncertain as he is.

“They certainly have more power than we do,” Luna says. “Many is the night I have been called to someone who truly needs the Glacian.”

Prompto nods, a little uncertainly. “Because of the healing…?” he asks.

Luna nods, but doesn’t go into more detail than that. “I’m glad that the first prayer you received was one you could answer,” she says instead, looking studiously at her game controller, and okay, Prompto’s not gonna pry into _that_ one.

“Yeah, me too,” he says, and decides it’s probably time to change the subject. “I’m gonna have to do my research, I guess. How’d you guys find out what you can do?”

They glance at each other again, and shrug simultaneously, and okay, maybe they’re just that cute all of the time.

“I have always known that I have magical abilities, and never had much in the way of teachers,” Luna says.

“And I always knew what I was supposed to be able to do, but I figured most of it out by trying it,” Noct adds. “So this was kinda… more of the same.”

“Huh,” Prompto says. “I guess you already got the ‘super unhelpful’ part of the god thing down.”

Noct shoves him in the head again, and the gesture turns into a quick ruffle of Prompto’s hair. Prompto pouts at him but doesn’t bother to fix it; his hair just doesn’t _do_ disheveled anymore. He’s a little confused, therefore, when Luna leans towards him and runs her fingers delicately through his bangs to make them stand upright.

“Noctis using his powers for ill again, I fear,” she says with a long-suffering sigh. “He is the one thing that can ruin my hair these days. There, that’s better.” She pats his cheek and pulls away. Prompto isn’t sure whether to miss her touch or just be relieved all he did was freeze up and get a little pink.

“Why do you have all the totally useless powers, dude?” Prompto asks.

Noct shrugs. “You gotta start somewhere.”

“I’m gonna make my next power giving you sunburn,” Prompto gripes.

Lunafreya laughs. “I shall support you.”

“Treason,” Noct grumbles quietly.

It’s an old and tired joke, but it makes Prompto grin anyway as he picks up his controller for the next round.

 

—

 

Prompto still goes running. He’s not sure he needs to anymore, but even if he’s not at risk of getting fat, he likes stretching his muscles. It’s a little weird, crossing paths with all these people and not hearing a reply to any greeting he gives, but if he keeps his mouth shut he can pretend like he’s just regular old mortal clone Prompto getting his exercise in. 

Except for the flowers that turn as he passes, but he’s starting to get used to those. They’re almost like a wave. After a couple days of silent runs, he starts greeting them; if nothing else the leaves tend to twitch in his direction.

It’s not so bad. Nice to get out of the Citadel, beautiful though it is, and its endless empty halls. 

“Good morning,” he chirps at a holly bush, which turns several leaves towards him. That’s all the answer he’s thinking he’ll get, but then he hears it.

“Good morning, my dear. Are you well?”

The voice sends ice through his blood.

“Oh, fuck no. Fuck off,” Prompto says, drawing his gun. “Fuck you, I am not dealing with you today.”

Ardyn looks only mildly wounded by the slew of invective. Still, Prompto thinks that looking wounded _at all_ is a step too far.

“I merely thought to pass the time in friendly fashion,” Ardyn says, holding his hands up, palms out. “As you can see, I am unarmed.”

“That doesn’t mean shit and we both know it,” Prompto snaps.

Ardyn puts his hands down, and frowns at Prompto’s still-raised gun, almost sadly. “Then you also know that no weapon you can wield will harm me,” he says. “If I wished you ill I would already have caused it.”

“I don’t _care_ , I don’t want you near me.”

The bow Ardyn sweeps him is theatrical to the point of parody, like Prompto’s a Lucis Caelum and deserves all the mockery he can get. “Very well. Farewell, Prompto Argentum,” he says, and disappears into thin air.

Shit. Prompto was supposed to ask him to come talk to Noct.

He shakes his head and lets his gun disappear. Next time, he promises himself. Definitely next time.

 

—

 

That night, Prompto wakes up in the darkness, to a voice hissing in his ear. 

_Oh powerful and beauteous Lord of the Sun,_ it says, in familiar silk-smooth tones.

Prompto’s first, sleepy, panicked instinct is to tuck his feet and head under the duvet, like he’s five years old and scared of daemons under the bed. It’s a mistake. Huddled there, there’s no Crystal’s light from the windows or small nighttime noises to distract him from the prayer.

_If thou art listening,_ Ardyn continues, inside his head, _I wish only that thou wouldst consent to speak with this unworthy worshipper._

_Shut up_ , Prompto thinks, as hard as he can, and concentrates on not doing anything like wondering where Ardyn is or what he wants, just in case he finds out.

_Oh, you are cruel_ , Ardyn replies. Even in Prompto’s head he sounds theatrical. Prompto can almost imagine the half-swoon, the hands clasped in front of his chest. It’s very warm under the duvet, but he shivers.

_How are you even doing this?_ he asks. _Shouldn’t you have to… actually worship me or something?_

_I have been counted devout of many, many gods_.

_Before or after you got your ass cursed by them?_

_Not all of them were so unkind._

Prompto wishes he couldn’t imagine the smirk that would go with the words. _I could curse seven kinds of shit out of you, asshole._

_You haven’t the inclination or the strength to curse me, boy._

_Want to bet?_

_I find no joy in gambling when I am certain of the outcome,_ Ardyn murmurs, and by some trick of thought he leaves the echo of laughter in Prompto’s head, and then he’s gone, and Prompto is huddled under his duvet alone.

 

—

 

That prayer, Prompto doesn’t talk about. Even though that makes him feel a little guilty. He just doesn’t want to tell Noct that Ardyn’s talking to him, but he keeps shoving him away. It’s been like fourteen years since Ardyn hurt him (aside from maybe killing him, if Ardyn was what killed him); he should be more or less over that, right? That’s half of the lifetime he actually got to live. Plenty of time to get over something like abduction and torture.

That’s too much talking it up for even Prompto to believe it, but he thinks he’d better get over it, honestly. It’s not like he has to do much of the work. Tell him Noct wants to talk, and get out of the way of the conversation of kings.

He just wants a bit of reassurance before he puts himself in that situation. If they’re more evenly matched now - if Gladio can hold Ardyn back from the whole of the Citadel - then maybe Prompto can do something, too. There’s powers he has to find out about, and who says one of them won’t protect him from Ardyn?

He tries the damn book first. Unsurprisingly, the chapter on Sun Gods - when he finds it - is unhelpful. First: a list of all the gods known to be associated with the sun, from a bunch of countries Prompto’s never even heard of. Then: a vague mention of the cyclical nature of a sun god’s life, “rising” and “setting” with the sun. Prompto really hopes that’s just about his new sleep cycle and not some kind of crazy thing where he has to die for the sun to be reborn or something like that. The guys would’ve told him if that was going to happen, right?

Maybe. They haven’t really been telling him a whole hell of a lot.

Okay, so the book’s a bust. Experimentation is how it’s gonna be. And he knows just who to talk to about the scientific method.

He invites himself on one of Ignis’s trips to the city the next chance he gets. It’s nice to have the excuse to do something with one of his friends, if he’s honest. Most of the time in the Citadel, he feels kinda like he did back at the start of his friendship with Noct - trying to fit himself into the things everybody else already has going on, and failing to understand where they’re coming from half the time.

At least, this time around, he already knows what he can do to integrate himself better. So, when he and Ignis get down to the city streets, he lets himself wonder aloud at all the changes since last time he was here. Ignis slows down a little bit and smiles at him as he goes on about the cool new temporary buildings that have sprung up, the colors people have painted the walls, the way there’s still wreckage in occasional blocks but always more new construction right across the street from it.

“I missed your gift for painting a picture with words,” Ignis tells him, when he stops for breath after describing the way some of the scaffolding cuts across the sky. “I had feared the city was not recovering well, but it sounds as though my fears were unfounded.”

“Ah, I’m just calling it as I see it,” Prompto demurs. “Gladio and Noct must’ve told you what was going on?”

“They did their best to convey it to me, but neither of them have an artist’s eye.”

Prompto grins. “Not their fault, I guess,” he says. “Not everybody can have these skills.”

“Quite. I wonder if you could do me another artistic favor?”

“Yeah, ‘course, whatever you need!” Prompto chirps.

Ignis leads them unerringly down a side street, towards, he explains, his new favorite cafe. “Could you describe it for me? It grew up out of a public kitchen at the beginning of the reconstruction, and I’ve never seen it, of course.”

“For sure!” It’s not hard to pick the building Ignis means, once he’s looking out for it, down on the end of the lane. “The Sunrise Cafe, huh? Well, they’re not creative…”

Ignis smiles. “Not particularly, but their espresso is the best you can find,” he says.

“I am on board for that. The front of it’s a shipping container,” Prompto continues. “You probably knew that. The awning is black. Are they allowed to use black for branding?”

“Who would tell them otherwise now? Besides, if it becomes an issue, I’m sure I can get them special dispensation from Noct.”

Prompto snorts. “Yeah, I guess that’s a perk, huh? The inside’s pretty cute. There’s a brick fireplace and wooden floors. Black and white curtains, and they drew a chalk mural over the counter, looks like the sunrise over Cape Caem. And… there’s a super long line. You sure you want to wait in that?”

“Of course not,” Ignis says. “We don’t wait in line.”

And they don’t. Ignis leads them right through the doors and the crowd of people waiting. It’s even weirder than passing people on runs. No one even looks at them, they just casually shift out of their way, until he and Ignis are up at the counter.

“We can’t exactly order, can we?” Prompto asks, confronted with a barista who looks straight through him and asks for the next customer in line.

“We don’t need to. Get out of the way, Prompto, they’ll ignore each other forever otherwise,” Ignis says, pulling Prompto aside. The next customer in line finally looks up from her phone and steps forward to give her order.

Ignis, meanwhile, slips right behind the counter and starts working one of the espresso machines.

“What the hell,” Prompto blurts out, leaning on the counter. The other baristas don’t even blink as Ignis takes tools and coffee beans from right under their noses. “What the _hell_. What does a guy have to do to get noticed in this town?”

“Something much more exciting than making coffees behind the counter in a coffee shop,” Ignis replies. He has to feel around a little bit for the tools, Prompto notices, but he doesn’t otherwise have much trouble navigating. “Would you like a latte?”

“Yes, please,” Prompto says. Ignis pulls the shots and steams the milk, and soon enough Prompto has a latte in his hands, complete with a simple but well-executed leaf rendered in foam. He eyes it with anticipation. He hasn’t tasted real coffee in… probably seven or eight years, subjective time. They never did have space or time to try it under the grow lights.

They get a table by standing over a woman camped out with a book until she starts looking around uncomfortably and leaves. Once they sit down it’s like the table itself becomes invisible - no one so much as glances their way again.

“This is mega creepy,” Prompto says. Then he wonders if Ignis can even tell, since it’s not like he can see people ignoring him. But Ignis nods.

“It takes some getting used to,” he admits. “It’s better with company, I find. Thank you for coming out with me today.”

“Hey, I wanted to,” Prompto says. “I’ve only seen what I run through of the city. I figure it’s time to start getting to know it again, right?”

“It may take a while,” Ignis warns. “It’s changed a great deal from when we last knew it well.”

“All the more reason to get my ass out here.” Prompto takes a tentative sip of his coffee, swallows, and lets out a long, satisfied sigh. “That is _amazing_ , Iggy.”

Ignis grins. “I’ve had some time to perfect the skill.”

“You ever make this for Noct? It might turn him on to coffee.”

“You assume he’d ever be awake early enough to join me,” Ignis says, which is a good point. “I’m sure he hasn’t gotten out of bed yet.”

“He and Luna both,” Prompto says. “She didn’t drop off until after I did last night.”

“Yes, this is the difficult time of month for her. She won’t be awake until this evening, and Noct might well follow her example.”

“Crap, does that mean we ditched Gladio?”

Ignis shakes his head. “I imagine Gladio is at the orphanage. He’s taken on the role of patron god there. Some of the children pray directly to him.”

Prompto blinks. “Orphanage, huh? Kind of hard to imagine Gladio with kids - hang on, wait, no it isn’t.” To his own surprise, Prompto’s brain seems perfectly capable of processing the idea of Gladio as patron god of an orphanage and presenting him with the image of Gladio being used as a jungle-gym by five or six small children at once. Huh. Yeah, that suits him pretty well.

Ignis laughs. “That was more or less my response, yes.”

“That’s pretty cool that he’s got something going on.” Prompto sips at his coffee again, finally destroying the delicate leaf on top. Oh well. Latte art is ephemeral the same way cherry blossoms are: permanent only once you snap a shot for the ‘gram.

“We have to stay busy.” Ignis looks very content, with his coffee in one hand, leaning back with his head tilted to listen to the conversations around them. “I keep my hand in politics where I can. Lady Lunafreya is experimenting with healing magic.”

“That’s cool,” Prompto says. “That all sounds, like… useful. Worthwhile, you know?”

“You’ve only been with us a short time, Prompto. There’s no need to worry about what you’ll be doing.”

Prompto shrugs. “I’m just curious, you know? I don’t know what I can do yet except confuse flowers.”

“Excuse me?”

Prompto explains about his single, useless power, and Ignis sits there for a minute considering it. Prompto has no doubt that if all Ignis could do was get plants’ attention, he’d somehow use it to win entire wars.

And he does tap his fingers on the table like he’s excited about something. “Well then. Perhaps our first stop should be the park, and we can experiment a little.”

“Yeah, that sounds great! I was gonna ask if we could,” Prompto admits. “I don’t know how you figured stuff out, but Noct and Lunafreya, it was like they didn’t even know.”

“Their experience in the mortal realm was very different from ours,” Ignis allows. “I may have a few tips that will make it easier on you.”

“I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

They finish their coffees chatting comfortably about the interior decorating (still a lot more black than Prompto thinks should be allowed, though it kind of thrills him to see it, in a commoner’s place of business), the regulars in the shop, and the view out the windows, things that Ignis hasn’t had anyone to describe to him in more than the simplest terms. Prompto thinks Ignis might just be humoring him, but he goes with it anyway. It’s nice to be even slightly useful again.

Afterwards they head out to what Ignis calls the park. It’s in roughly the same location as the Old Caelum Park, but beyond that there’s almost nothing that Prompto recognizes.

“The committee in charge of reconstruction decided to leave this place to nature,” Ignis tells him. “Even as the rest of the city is rebuilt, the park will be a memorial to what happened.”

“It’s a good one,” Prompto says. Gods, is it ever. It looks like a little piece of one of the Astrals’ battlegrounds, all jagged scars in the earth and ripped up buildings, the exposed dirt and brick and pipes and wiring now partially covered with vines and moss. Eventually the plants will eat all the harsh edges, he knows, maybe not in ten years or thirty, but someday. Nature will soften all the shit that humans and the gods put it through. It’ll be healed.

Prompto takes a couple steps forward and puts his hand on the nearest slab of concrete, feeling the moss growing over its rough edge. It’s cool and damp and a little slimy. Ah, life.

“The light’s great here,” he says, picking his way forward. Ignis follows him. “It always was. I used to feel like I was some, I dunno, great explorer-photographer when I came here. Out documenting nature in the wilds of Lucis.”

“It must have been a surprise when you actually visited the wilds of Lucis.”

Prompto laughs. “Yeah, it was. Sunlight was different outside the Wall. And don’t even get me started on the animals. City pigeons just weren’t good enough training.”

There are dandelions scattered here and there in the grass, bobbing their hellos at Prompto’s approach. He stops for a minute and waves to one of them.

“Oh,” Ignis says.

“Huh? What’s up?”

“What did you do? I could see you for a moment.”

“What?” Prompto stares at his hand, dumbfounded. “I just kinda - nothing? I think? You can really see me?”

Ignis shakes his head. “Not _you,_ but the light. I still have enough vision left to see that when it’s bright enough. Did you do something?”

“I, uh, waved at a flower?”

Ignis laughs very quietly. “Try doing it again.”

Awkwardly, Prompto waves again, glancing at Ignis when he’s done. Ignis shakes his head and picks his way over to a nearby piece of rubble. “I suspect you must have done something else. Consider what you were feeling at the time you waved first. Often magic responds well to the mental state of the caster.”

“I was just saying hi.” Prompto flexes his fingers and thinks about greeting the plants on his run, about being surprised when he turns a corner and there’s a welcoming flower bending in his direction. He tries a third time.

“That’s it.”

“Yeah, I saw it this time, I think,” Prompto says. It was just a little flash of light, a few shadows flickering where he didn’t expect them, but it was definitely… something.

“You mentioned that you were going to ask to practice,” Ignis says. “What was it that you hoped to accomplish today?”

“Oh, yeah. Uh.” Prompto looks at his debatably-godly feet, and shrugs even though Ignis can’t see it. “I was hoping for - something like you said Gladio did. Something protective.”

“Something to hold off another god, perhaps?” Ignis asks. Prompto remembers that Gladio said Ignis already failed at getting Ardyn to come back with him.

“Yeah. That. I’m not planning on doing anything stupid, it’s just, Noct asked, you know?”

Ignis nods and doesn’t ask any more questions. Prompto wonders how much Gladio told him. “Of course. You won’t get there today. Gladio spent months raising that barrier, and his realm of influence lends itself to such work. You’ll have better luck if you focus on what you know of your own powers. Perhaps an illusion, or simply a blinding light.”

“Blinding light, huh?”

“It may not sound like much, but it can be dangerous if deployed correctly. You’ve been on the wrong end of a flashbang grenade before.”

“Yeah, I mean, I know, it just seems like… I already do that.”

“In flashes, without direction,” Ignis says. “If you focus you may be able to do more.”

“Okay, sure, why not. I’ll give it a shot.”

Prompto shakes himself out like and looks up at the sun. Luna said, _we are the Sun and Moon_ , and Prompto tries to feel that, tries to imagine being a source of light. He thinks of the sun bearing down on him and his friends as they pushed the car down an endless desert road. Light reflecting off water and hurting his eyes, the way he seems immune to now. Sunlight inside him and pouring out, bringing heat with it, bathing everything it touches in cleansing light.

“Well, you’ve done _something_.”

Prompto looks down at himself. He can’t see the glow, but he can see that he’s… transparent, not even half there. If he holds his hand out it looks less like a solid object and more like the suggestion of a beam of light picked out in dust particles. He flexes his fingers; he can still feel the palm of his hand against his fingertips, solid and reassuring, but he can barely see the place where they meet.

“I’m invisible,” he tells Ignis.

“You’re a bloody floodlight,” Ignis corrects him. He has his hand up to protect even his almost-useless eyes. Prompto can’t see the light he’s sending out, but he can see the harsh shadow of Ignis’s hand against his face. All around him, the plants are sending out their own shadows, long and sharp-edged.

“Are you corporeal?” Ignis asks.

Prompto bends down and tries to pick up a rock. His fingers slip right through it. “Nope! Doesn’t look like it.”

The next thing he hears is the _thunk_ of a knife into the ground. His attention goes instantly back to Ignis; Ignis, who is standing on the opposite side of him to his dagger, which is embedded several inches into the earth.

“Did you just throw a knife through me?”

“I don’t hear you dying, so I suppose I must have,” Ignis replies.

“Super not cool!” Prompto yells, even though it kind of is. He goes to pick up the dagger, but fails completely. He’s still see-through, a trick of the light, even to his own eyes.

Ignis comes over to get his dagger and walks _through_ part of Prompto’s shoulder, like a bad clip in a video game. Prompto doesn’t even feel it. He thought he’d feel something like that. When he pokes his own shoulder, he’s solid.

“This is fucking weird. I don’t know how to turn it off,” he admits.

“What did you do to turn it on? Do the opposite of that.”

“Thanks for the strategy, Iggy.” Prompto rolls his eyes, but maybe Ignis does have a point. He shakes out his shoulders and tries to think earthly thoughts. Darkness. Solidity. Cool moss in the shadow of concrete. All the light he’s putting out curling back inside his body, filling him and staying under his skin so he can let these other, shadowed things _be_.

“You’re less blinding now,” Ignis says after a moment. “Did you achieve what you’d hoped to?”

Prompto laughs, staring up into the autumn-blue sky, unblinking as the sun. “I think it’s gonna do the trick.”

 

—

 

Prompto feels better about what he’s doing now. He has a little bit of power, and a way to put himself out of Ardyn’s reach, and it’s more than he’s ever had confronting Ardyn before. It’s going to be _fine_.

He keeps telling himself that as he sprints down the path where he last saw Ardyn, and sure enough, the man’s waiting for him. There’s a little restaurant that Prompto always passes by, and as Prompto comes into sight of it, he sees a flash of familiar russet hair.

He slows. Ardyn sits on one of the little bistro tables, right in between a pair of teenaged girls, who are talking animatedly right through him. When Prompto stops, reluctantly even though he planned for this, Ardyn tips his hat.

“What brings you so far from the bosom of your dear pantheon?”

Prompto folds his arms. “Why do you want to know?”

Ardyn sighs. “I so rarely see any of you alone,” he explains. “I only wanted to know if this were an ordinary occurrence or an extraordinary one, to find you out and about twice in a single week.”

“I come running every other day,” Prompto says. “You used to be _good_ at creeping.”

Ardyn’s laugh is surprising in how genuine it seems. “There was a time I was rather better at slipping in amongst the shadows.”

“Yeah, well. You won’t be doing that around me anymore.” Prompto searches for that pure light inside him, that glow of the sun that wants to slip out. He doesn’t let it burst out like in the park with Ignis, but he sees the shadows deepen on Ardyn’s face and around his feet.

Ardyn notes the change, lifting his hand to play with the shadows Prompto casts on the table behind him. “But what is the sun but the provider of shadows?”

“It does a couple other things too - okay, I didn’t come out here to fail at word games with you.”

Ardyn smiles. “So we come ever closer to your purpose.”

“There’s about a billion things I could have _not_ come out here to do - _ugh_.” Prompto cuts himself off once again. Not getting distracted by Ardyn being Ardyn is always a little more difficult than it should be.

“Perhaps you wished only for more interesting company than you find at the Citadel.”

Prompto grits his teeth and folds his arms, trying to make himself a little more intimidating, a little larger than he really is. Stuff he learned during the long night. It’s not like it’ll work on Ardyn, but it makes him feel a little bit less distractible. He cuts to the chase. “Why did you pray to me?”

Ardyn lifts his eyebrows, and spreads his hands, knocking one of the chattering girls’ drinks slightly; she grabs her glass without even looking at it. “You are so kind to ask. Most gods won’t, you know. No follow-through whatsoever.”

“Did you even have a reason? Beyond trying to mess with my head again, I mean, I know _that_ one.”

“I had questions about your nature, my dear boy.” Ardyn smirks and shakes his head when Prompto opens his mouth to say something shocked. “Fear not; I’ve answered them.”

“What were they?” Prompto asks.

“Only what it was you had become,” Ardyn tells him. “Your Radiance.”

The look he gives Prompto would make him _blush_ if it came from someone he liked. As it is Prompto takes a step back from him. A guy walking by swerves to avoid him without looking up from his cell phone.

“What is it like to be a real boy?” Ardyn asks lightly. “Have all your dreams come true?”

Prompto looks down at his wrist, where his barcode manifestly _isn’t_ , and scowls. “I was always real.”

“Only as much as the rest of us are, I fear. You would think, wouldn’t you, that we could all have rested after everything we did? But no,” Ardyn says. The wind kicks up around him, ruffling his hair. Prompto wonders if that’s like how Noct makes dramatic light and shadows, the world around him picking up on the picture he wants to create. “No, we are only stories to them, and so we carry on. Hardly real at all in any way that matters.”

Prompto seriously can’t tell whether Ardyn is trying to tell him a truth, spinning metaphors about something unrelated, or just trying to throw him off balance. Could be all three, he guesses. “So what kind of story are you?”

“One for another time,” Ardyn tells him, shaking his head. “It’s a tale much improved by an appropriate stage, which this is not.”

He actually picks up the drink of the girl to his right, then, and takes a sip of it. As he hands it back to her, he smirks at Prompto’s wide-eyed expression. She plucks it right out of the air without apparently noticing anything.

“It would hardly be fair of me to tell you too much, after all. Your own story is only just beginning its second act.”

“Man, you’re still just as much of a pain in the ass,” Prompto says. “It’s like talking to an NPC. Fancy dialogue that tells you like one thing. I don’t know _why_ Noct wants to talk to you.”

That catches Ardyn’s attention, making him focus on Prompto’s words instead of on his own. “Noctis wishes to speak with me?” he asks.

If Prompto didn’t know better he’d think Ardyn sounded hopeful. He nods. “That’s what he told me. Just to talk, he said.”

“I see. I am not looking for His Majesty’s _pity_ ,” Ardyn says, voice gone low and dangerous. “You can tell him that when he is ready to answer my prayers, I will see him. Not before.”

“You pray to him, too? Hmph. I thought we had something special.”

Ardyn shows his teeth in something approximating a grin and Prompto remembers why he always regretted mouthing off to him. “Of course we do, my dear,” he says slowly. “I hope you haven’t forgotten so soon. Why, fourteen years, that’s hardly any time at all.”

“Not nearly enough,” Prompto mutters. Suddenly he’s done with this, he needs to get away from Ardyn again. “I’m gonna… finish my run.”

“Enjoy, your Radiance. And do tell King Noctis what I said.”

Prompto doesn’t acknowledge him. Even if jogging on down the road doesn’t have as much drama to it as turning invisible, or teleporting, or whatever, it feels good to be the one leaving Ardyn behind for once.


	6. Chapter 6

Prompto means to head right back to the Citadel and find Noct, but he doesn’t have to go that far. His route back takes him through the Nif district, what used to be the very edge of his running route, back when he was alive. It doesn’t look much different from the rest of the city now - all boarded up windows and half-fallen buildings. There aren’t many people out and about, even at this time of day. Prompto only catches sight of a few women milling about, and then a couple walking together. There’s something not quite right about the couple, though - one of them is leaning hard on the other, and - _fuck_ , that’s Gladio and Noct.

As soon as Prompto recognizes them, his speed doubles. He’s not sure what could get them in trouble but something has. Gladio looks like five miles of bad road, with one eye swollen up and starting to blacken, and Noct is leaning heavy against him, dragging in a way Prompto recognizes too well from the trip to the Crystal.

“What can I do?” he pants as he comes up near them. He knows it’s not gonna be a lot; he doesn’t have potions or a first-aid kid on him. His gun, at least, materializes in his hand as he gets close, and he scans the street behind them for threats. But Noct just laughs and shakes his head.

“Chill, dude. We got it sorted.”

“Yeah okay. You look like shit,” Prompto tells him, not bothering to hide the relief. He grabs Noct’s free arm and throws it over his own shoulders. “What _happened_? I thought we were supposed to be, like, untouchable.” Sudden fear strikes him. “Did Ardyn find you?”

“Nah, wasn’t him. Thanks,” Noct says. He slumps against Prompto’s side, and Gladio stands up a little straighter without Noct’s weight on him. “We just need to rest. This kind of stuff heals fast.”

Prompto eyes Gladio uncertainly. “This happens a lot?”

Gladio shrugs. “Sometimes, yeah,” he says. “He’s right though. It’ll be gone in a couple days.”

“So, _really_ fast, huh? What hit you?” Prompto asks. “You didn’t pick a fight with an Astral or something.” Not that Prompto would be super surprised if they did.

“Not an Astral, just some guy,” Gladio says. He’s smiling a little. “Relax. Don’t tell me you don’t want to hit people in the physical plane sometimes.”

“It hasn’t, like, been a problem,” Prompto says. “So you _did_ pick a fight?”

Gladio shakes his head. “I’m a Shield. I was shielding. Someone was trying to hit one of my kids.”

“Your _what_?” Prompto blurts out, before he remembers what Ignis said about the orphanage.

From Gladio’s grin he probably knows exactly what Prompto’s thinking. “Her name’s Laena. Some fucking moron showed up claiming one of the little ones was his, and she got in the way. Coulda been real bad. Thank fuck she’s one of mine.” Gladio runs his hands through his hair with an expression of pure satisfaction. “Bet he’s not coming back anytime soon.”

“Not after his fist bounced off a skinny little teenager’s face,” Noct says, with a smile like he’s remembering something particularly pleasant. He’s hard to keep a grip on in his fancy royal clothing, so Prompto wraps an arm around his waist, too. It makes him lean harder into Prompto’s side.

Gladio snorts. “Think it had more to do with you laying down the law.”

Prompto looks over Noct’s hair at Gladio’s face, sees the split in his eyebrow right over his scar. “So did you take the hit for her or something? That looks super painful.”

Gladio grins. “Yeah, but it’s cool. He broke his hand.”

“Wish I’d seen his face during that part,” Noct muses.

They recap the fight for Prompto as they walk back to the Citadel, keeping a slow and steady pace that allows for Prompto to keep a solid hold on Noct. It sounds typical enough for some of the rougher parts of the city, if Prompto’s honest. It’s not like he lived in the _bad_ part of Insomnia, but he lived close enough that being woken up by some dude screaming on the street about family shit wasn’t exactly an unfamiliar event. Prompto’s glad this kid had Noct and Gladio around.

Ignis is waiting at the Citadel entrance when they return, and the moment they step onto the grounds, he heads unerringly for them. He goes to Noct first, somehow intuiting that he’s at Prompto’s side, and Noct shakes his head and says, “I’m fine, go check on the big guy.”

“Hey babe,” Gladio says, and when Ignis steps closer to him he wraps him in a hug. Ignis’s arms loop around his waist, a little more slowly. “Already heard about it, huh?”

“I could not avoid hearing of your exploits if I tried,” Ignis replies, disentangling himself slowly. “The entire city is aware that there was a supernatural event.”

“Don’t bitch, Iggy, it was one of my kids.”

Ignis shakes his head, his expression fond. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I trust you were able to resolve the matter?”

“Yeah, it’s all good,” Noct says. He leans on Prompto again. “C’mon, I need to sit.”

Prompto hurries to lead him along to the front doors. Gladio and Ignis walk ahead a bit, and Ignis opens them, ushering the rest of them in and down the hall to the sitting room nearest the kitchens. Prompto makes a beeline for one of the big comfy chairs and drops Noct in it. His king lands on the upholstery with a grunt.

Prompto crouches in front of him. “You need anything?”

“Just a nap. Maybe food,” Noct says.

Ignis stands up from where he’s bent over Gladio, also seated in one of the big comfy chairs, and disappears in the direction of the kitchens. Prompto doubts he’s gonna be helpful with that, so he stays where he is.

“You don’t have to hover,” Noct tells him with a small smile. “Wanna find Luna for me? She can fix Gladio up even faster.”

“She’s probably still asleep,” Prompto says.

Noct shrugs. “So bring her down here and I’ll wake her up. Don’t worry, she won’t mind. She’d be more mad if we didn’t.”

“Uh. You want me to… go get her? Out of bed?” Prompto stutters as he imagines breaking in and digging _Lady Lunafreya_ out of her bedroom.

Noct, being Noct, doesn’t really seem to think about the implications. “Yeah. Seriously, go. Bedroom door’s open, for you, anyway.”

“Uh, okay! You got it!” Prompto says, jumping to his feet.

As he dashes off he hears Gladio saying “Are you kidding me?” but it doesn’t seem directed at him, so he ignores it.

Noct’s direct orders or not, this is a stupid idea, Prompto thinks when he arrives at Luna’s door. He can’t exactly just _barge in_ , can he? Even though Noct told him to? He knocks twice, before remembering that’s stupid. Luna’s as out of it as he is at night, and there’s no way he’ll be able to wake her up with just a knock.

Well, there is one thing other than Noct that can get him out of bed these days. Feeling a little awkward, he goes to his knees; it’s been a long ass time since he’s been to a temple but he remembers the form of praying.

He doesn’t know what her title is, he realizes. None of the five of them are in the lists of gods that Prompto’s been reading through. He makes his best guess at something that’ll get her attention. “Lady of the Moon,” he mumbles, trying not to get self-conscious. Wait, what did Ardyn say to him, in that one prayer that woke him up? “Gentle and glorious Lady of the Moon,” he says, a little more confidently. “Our friend is, uh, hurt, and we need your help. Um. Please wake up?”

He has his head bowed looking for the next phrase, and realizes too late that the door is coming open, and Luna is standing above him. He stares up and instantly feels his face go hot.

“Get up, Prompto. There’s no need for you to pray to me,” she says, and Prompto thinks she looks a little sad. “Who’s injured?”

He scrambles to his feet, taking her offered hand only as gently as he can manage. “Gladio, but it’s not bad, just a black eye. I - sorry. I didn’t know how to get you up,” he stammers.

“Don’t worry. I’ll set him to rights,” Luna says, with a kind smile that’s a little fuzzy around the edges from sleep. Prompto feels like he’s seeing something he’s not supposed to, and averts his eyes.

“Thanks, Lady Lunafreya,” he says, politely and a bit subdued.

“Please, Prompto,” Luna says. Something in her tone sounds pained enough that Prompto looks back up at her, but she’s already turning to walk downstairs before he can get a read on her expression. Her bare feet pad on the marble without a sound. “We’re friends, aren’t we? There’s no need to stand on ceremony. Certainly not when you’ve pulled me from my bed in the middle of the day.”

The words could be a gentle rebuke, but she throws him a quick, small smile over her shoulder, and Prompto’s heart is too busy melting for his anxiety to take over.

“Yeah! Sorry, Luna,” he says instead. “Of course we’re friends.”

Another smile. Maybe Prompto _is_ putting her on a bit too high of a pedestal, because just the curve of her lip makes him feel _totally blessed_.

Noct is tearing into a plate of sandwiches when they get back to the sitting room, though he looks up to wave at them when they enter. He seems more exhausted than Gladio, and he doesn’t have a single bruise on him. Prompto wonders if gods can get stasis.

“You’re up,” he says, as Luna passes him by, brushing her fingers against his upraised hand as he does. “Expected Prompto to have to carry you down.”

“Prompto is a devotee of mine, it seems,” Luna tells him.

A brief frown flits over Noct’s face, an expression Prompto can’t interpret. He swears he used to be better at figuring out what was bugging Noct. He hopes to whatever that it’s not jealousy - there’s no _reason_ he could be jealous of Prompto, though, right? Is praying to somebody’s fiancée a godly faux pas? Not like Prompto would know.

Prompto drops onto the arm of Noct’s chair and steals half a sandwich to distract them both, shouting a thanks to Iggy in the kitchen. Noct swats at him half-heartedly and they bicker while Luna, because she’s a professional, ignores them in favor of her patient.

Luna sits on the arm of Gladio’s chair and cups her hand around the injured side of his face. “You will never stop getting in the way, will you?” she asks.

Gladio’s answering grin is soft and familiar. “Not a chance, ma’am,” he says.

Luna shakes her head, and white light pours out of her fingers, casting gentle shadows on the floor around them. Prompto has his camera out the second the light appears; they’re too perfect not to capture. He takes a time-lapse of the cut on Gladio’s eyebrow closing up, the bruise on his cheek fading away.

“All healed,” Luna says. She presses a kiss to Gladio’s cheek and he opens his eyes. Prompto catches that on film, too, before he puts his camera away.

“Good as new,” he says. “Thanks.”

“It is no trouble at all. But I insist that you both rest,” Luna tells him. “At least for the rest of the day.”

“I can tell ya Noct’s gonna be asleep in about five minutes,” Prompto says, looking down at Noct’s slumped form. Noct opens his half-closed eyes enough to give Prompto a dirty look, then he shrugs, and lets them close completely. “Maybe two.”

“Not surprising,” Luna says with a fond sigh. “Will you be joining him, Gladio?”

“I’m good now. Princess pushed himself a lot harder than I did.” Gladio gets to his feet. “Think I’m gonna go help Iggy out.”

Luna sinks into Gladio’s abandoned chair, folding her feet neatly underneath her. “So long as you don’t get into any fights on the way there.”

“My word as Shield,” Gladio says. “D’you need me tonight? I know it’s the full moon.”

“I think not. I would rather not take you out of the Citadel with Noctis incapacitated.”

Gladio nods. “Take Prompto, why don’t you,” he says. “About time he started doing some work around here.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Prompto says instinctively, but Luna is smiling at him, so he can’t put any kind of heat in it. “Wait, where are we going?”

“I visit my temple in Tenabrae a few times a month, to answer prayers directly,” Luna says. “I would appreciate an escort.”

“You have a temple?” Prompto asks. “I’d love to come with you! Oh, but tonight?”

Noct stirs from his drowsing long enough to poke him in the ribs. Prompto feels that little spark of energy pass between them, and knows he won’t sleep when the sun goes down. “Uh, never mind.”

“Perfect,” Luna says. “Let me get my husband to bed, and I shall come to you when it is time to leave.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this took so long to get out! I appreciate you all hanging in there with me.


End file.
